Since doing a Javascript study group last year, I’ve been keen to organise a Data Structures & Algorithms study group (partly to brush up on interviewing).

I’m pleased to announce that the study group will start January 28th. If you’re interested and live in Sydney, read on.

What will I learn?

We will be doing the Algorithms I course by Princeton university.

It involves a series of lectures & quizzes you watch at home, followed by a group meeting every Wednesday. At the group meeting you can ask questions about anything you didn’t understand, and start to go through coding exercises.

The course material is presented in Java, however you can choose a language of your choice to complete the problems. If you would like Coursera to mark your assignments and final exam, you would need to complete the course in Java. (Note: Completion certificates aren’t issued for this course.)

If you are unsure of Java syntax, please read up on a quick syntax guide before starting the course.

Where and when do we meet?

Atlassian has kindly agreed to host our meetings. Their office is Level 6, 341 George Street Sydney. The building entrance is off Wynyard St.

We’ll meet on Wednesdays at 6:30pm (please be prompt).

The course is 6 weeks and runs from January 28th until March 4th. There will be an optional week after the course ends to practice answering technical interview questions.

How much will it cost?

The course is free if you attend 5 out of the 6 meetings. You can skip one meeting without a penalty.

Everyone will be asked to pay 6 x $10 per meeting at the first meeting, a total of $60. For every meeting you attend, you’ll be credited $10 back.

For anyone who misses a meeting, their money goes into a pot. At the end of the course, the pot will be divided among the people who attended the most meetings. Nerdery pays 🙂

This is mainly an attempt to identify the people who really want to participate, and to motivate people to stick with the group.

Prerequisites

This is not a beginner’s course. You should:

• Be able to code confidently in a language of your choice
• Be comfortable with git
• Understand the concept of a class, objects, functions, arrays, lists, sets, loops, recursion and the core types available in your chosen language
• Understand what unit testing is
• Be willing to discuss your approaches to problems, and demo code
• Be willing to spend 4-12 hours a week watching lectures and completing code assignments

I’m not teaching this content, I want to learn it and would like other motivated people around at the same time.

How can I sign up?

The study group will be limited to 15 people. The first 15 people who contact me (@daphnechong) and bring a refundable $60 to the first meeting will be eligible.

See you there 🙂